Eileen Is an Ode to the ‘50s and ‘60s – WWD

LONDON — Costume designer Olga Mill calls these in her line of occupation the final word “web creepers” relating to researching a mission and getting each element right in a personality’s closet.

“I checked out Sears catalogues from the ‘50s. I actually went down some rabbit holes on Flickr, searching for household archive images — there’s people that may put up their complete household archives and that’s tremendous useful since you’re getting a non-presentational model of what individuals appear like,” she says.

Mill needs there was a Fb within the ‘50s for her to dive into additional analysis for the upcoming psychological thriller movie “Eileen,” primarily based on Ottessa Moshfegh’s 2015 novel.

The movie stars Thomasin McKenzie as Eileen and Anne Hathaway as Rebecca, two ladies who meet at a juvenile correctional facility for teenage boys within the ‘60s in New England.

The introduction of Rebecca’s character sees Eileen going from a mousy back-of-the-scene character to a brave and harmful she-wolf.

“You see her at first in a pink coat with a mousy mink fur collar and by the point she leaves, she has a floor-length fur coat. It’s this concept of going from mousy type of issues occurring to her to having all this company and being the violent, aggressive one by the tip,” Mill says.

She sourced lots of the items for the movie from a classic home in upstate New York referred to as Proper to the Moon Alice, in addition to utilizing Western Costume in Hollywood and contacts she’s made over time, comparable to a girl named Terry in New Jersey who she sourced a lot of deadstock ‘50s underwear from.

Mill insisted that lots of Eileen’s items be repeated all through the movie to floor the character and to make her really feel like an actual individual fairly than attempting to execute a glossed interval picture that’s so prevalent in dramas set previously. 

As an illustration, Eileen’s stockings are stretched out and bunched on the ankles and her sweaters carry a visceral itchiness that comprises a guttural discomfort of the late ‘50s.

“I actually needed to discover a illustration of the late ‘50s for Eileen as a result of she’s not anyone that’s in New York with the most recent fashions, getting {a magazine} and going procuring. All of her issues are form of dated as a result of she’s in a small city,” says Mill, explaining that Rebecca’s character is available in as an aspirational breeze to distinction with Eileen’s small city methods.

At first it was tempting for the costume designer to make Rebecca a “character in all shiny colours,” however she switched gears to mirror that she’s a girl in a male-dominated workforce.

Rebecca is launched on display screen getting out of a crimson automobile carrying a black and white coat with a lightweight icy grey Courrèges skirt go well with beneath with a black briefcase and crimson purse in hand.

Mills regarded to the 1964 romance thriller “Crimson Desert” starring Monica Vitti for references. For Rebecca, she discovered a camel shearling coat with white trim that resembles Vitti’s black and white shearling coat with a turned up collar.

“I imagined Rebecca having it [the shearling coat] in faculty or being a form of early skilled on campus — it’s a barely counterculture aesthetic,” she says.

As the connection between Eileen and Rebecca endures, the sartorial dynamics change aesthetically after they’re in personal areas collectively. 

At Rebecca’s home, Eileen overdresses for the event, whereas Rebecca is underdressed in a roll neck and cardigan. However she nonetheless holds the ability within the scene, in line with Mills.

“We constructed that costume that Eileen wears and we needed her to really feel like a Christmas current. She’s going to Rebecca’s home desirous to be unwrapped and desirous to current herself. Whoever you costume up for all the time holds energy,” Mills says.